The private sector is increasingly being engaged in climate finance and climate-related activities. Private sector opportunities for engagement in climate change adaptation are less clear than for mitigation, particularly in developing countries. This article first conceptualizes private sector engagement in adaptation by exploring (1) different roles of the private sector in adaptation in developing countries and (2) the way governments can create an enabling environment to increase private sector engagement. Second, it analyses how 47 least developed countries (LDCs) envisage the role of the private sector in their National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs). This article argues that private sector engagement in adaptation is often inevitable and potentially significant. Yet, the results show that it receives little attention in NAPAs. This may have three explanations: (1) an intentional approach of LDCs to avoid a distraction from the necessity to scale up public funding; (2) a lack of awareness of the potential of the private sector; and (3) the NAPA formulation guidelines focus on the public sector in the context of public financing, potentially causing path dependency. Developed countries' historic responsibility for emissions obliges them to upscale public climate finance. At the same time, however, LDCs should further explore private sector engagement in adaptation.
